About Betel – rescuing those addicted

Betel began in Madrid in 1985 when a small group of WEC missionaries began to care for the needs of drug addicts and marginalized people living on the streets.

Today Betel has become a global phenomenon, established in over 100 urban areas in 23 countries worldwide.

Betel’s mission is to bring long-term freedom and restoration to men and women broken by drug and alcohol abuse. Betel accomplish this by building values, skills and character through living, working and worshipping together in a caring Christian community.

Each Betel residential centre is run by men and women who have themselves experienced freedom from addiction.

"Our end goal is to help people not only escape addiction, but become productive, trustworthy men and women of character when they leave our community. We believe that life is never hopeless." Anthony heads up Betel Manchester. Read Anthony's story

About United Kingdom

The capital of the United Kingdom is London and is the largest city with a population of 10.3m. London is the fourth-largest city in Europe. Other major urban areas in the UK include Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester.

The UK is a developed country and has the world’s fifth-largest economy by GDP. The total area of the UK is approximately 243,610 square kilometres. The country occupies the major part of the Bristish Isle archipelago. The UK has a temperate climate, with plentiful rainfall all year round.

Politics

The UK has a constitutional monarchy. Queen Elizabeth II is the monarch and head of state of the UK, as well as Queen of 15 other independent Commonwealth countries. The UK has a parliamentary government based on the Westminster system that has been emulated around the world. The prime minister is the UK's head of government. The UK has sovereignty over 17 territories which do not form part of the UK itself (14 British Overseas Territories and three Crown dependencies).

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved administrations based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. Each have their own government or executive, led by a First Minister.

CULTURE:

Media

The Times began in 1785 and is the world’s oldest newspaper. The BBC began in 1922 and is the UK’s publicly-funded broadcasting corporation – it is the world’s oldest broadcaster. In 2017, eight in 10 adults in the UK (79% or 40m adults) used TV catch-up technology such as BBC iPlayer (or streaming services such as Netflix). (Source: Ofcom).

Today is a ‘golden age of radio.’ For example, 48m adults listened to over 1bn hours of radio each week between Oct-Dec 2016 – a new record. (Source: Rajar, quoted by The Financial Times).

Literature

The English playwright and poet William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest dramatist of all time. A small selection of other notable writers include: Geoffrey Chaucer, John Bunyan, John Milton, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë,Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot and William Wordsworth. 20th century English writers include HG Wells. Roald Dahl, D H Lawrence, George Orwell, Agatha Christie, J R R Tolkien, C S Lewis and J K Rowling.

The UK is well known for its popular music. The Beatles are the biggest-selling and most influential band in the history of pop. Other notable British artists include: The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, The Who, David Bowie, Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, The Police, Coldplay, Oasis, Robbie Williams, Amy Winehouse and Adele.

The population of the UK is around 65.4 million. 57% profess to be Christian and of those 7.91% are Evangelical. Other main religions and belief systems include: Islam - 4.1%, Hinduism - 2.8%, Pagan religions - 0.7%, Buddhism - 0.4%, Non-religious - 34.5%.

The UK contains around 105 distinct people groups, of whom 32 are currently unreached with the hope of the gospel.

Please pray with us for:– integration and support for refugees and immigrants
– a national awakening
– local churches sharing the good news of Jesus
– youth and childrens' work[Operation World, 2010 print edition]

WEC's work in the UK has a long history of training and sending Christian workers all over the world. WEC UK is committed to:

• Partnering with churchesall over the UK to mobilise our members into ministry;• Working cross-culturally to bring immigrant communities into Christian community Neighbours Worldwide;• Encouraging and stimulating prayer for world missions, accurately researching the whole mission scene through the Operation World team;• Offering opportunities for short-term missions exposure;• Ministering to drug and alcohol addicts through the work of Betel;• Training and producing broadcast content;• Working with churches to run World Adventure kids programmes and summer youth camps aiming to bring children to faith and to learn about their place in God’s world;• Publishing strategic mission books and magazines;• Hosting Mission & Me days to those wishing to explore God’s call to cross-cultural work.

WEC is a Registered Charity in England, Wales & Scotland numbers 237005 and SCO37715. Our international site is: wecinternational.org

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